Ever copy a fictional charcter to get along w/others?

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Just this post, because it could be helpful to others, and then I'll be quiet, as I am really busy. Studying seems to be one of my fascinations

Friendship is one area where I've felt more like the average person, sometimes uncomfrtable but not always a lot, like maybe I don't have AS. But, let me see if it strikes a chord anyway. How many of you ever tried "copying" a fictional character? Because I'm also overly sensitive to others in certain ways, and I just wonder if this ever worked for you; it has for me. Of course, maybe some with AS are more able to do this than others.

I always seemed to be able to attract friends and keep them b/c we had the same interests; and it's true that the loss of one of my best friends who stopped being interested over time in video games and board games, thought the Abbott and Cotello type humor of a couple other friends and I was just "something dumb", and just didn't believe in being wholesome - I will never drink or swear, he thought it was okay to curse and such - and make fun of my conservative views when he got to college.

But, I was able to get to know him b/c back in grade school we did what I termed "weirdness" with just silly humor, etc., and I just felt like, "This is a friendship like Charlie Brown and Linus have."

See, I copied Charlie Brown when it came to friendship, b/c I could read from age 3, and so grew up always thinking, "Well, this is a kid I feel like I identify with, if I just do what he does in situations I'll be okay." After a couple years on the playground of not fitting in, bit by bit another girl, Angela, got me to feel comfortable by playingt with me even when my play was, well, eccentric (made-up words, silly songs, imaginary friends till I was 8 or so.) However, I always felt like I would just take things like CB would

This included blurting out to my friend, Bob at a school assembly, that I was going to marry Angela, one day, so everyone could hear. (Yes, she later told me she liked me, too. Sadly, she moved away in 5th grade, though she is doing well now and we are both strong in faith that we'll meet again in Heaven; I stil pray for her.) And yet, I liked her enough that I said if she didn't marry me, I'd choose someone else. Becasue I cared about her, but also, I think I figured it's what CB would have done.

I think the thing that hurt the most was this friend and another from high school "few up" while I stayed like a kid in some ways, enjoying some cartoons, liking the games we'd play when in Junior High or grade school, the Mad Libs we'd do, and so on. So, perhaps part of me did become too emotionally attached and felt hurt by growing more distant. I had a handful of friends in college who were close, but not many in law school, just one really; and he'd been int he same college as I (he was getting a Masters) and always seemed to understand me because his brother is likely mildly autistic or at least an Aspie.

So, I've been lucky, I guess - not many problems overall. I now have good friends, we've laughed and told silly yet clean jokes and just had fun watching football or playing board games or something for years,and I felt comfortble with them fromt he start. I've always loved hanging around them.

But, it took 4-5 years to really feel comfortable opening up to them about feelings, etc.. I gues with me, it just sort of felt like what my friends and I had done in grade school - wholesome, funny humor, without a tinge of swearing or inneuendo or anything. So, I guess I continue, in a way, to do what CB and a few other fictional characters I really like would do, though I do feel some attachment to my friends it's a little harder at times.

SOrry to ramble so much, and I know withs ome of you, it might be hard to deduce what a charlie Brown would do, for instance, in somesituations. Maybe that's where the spectrum thing comes in, and if I do have it, I'm just higher up ont he spectrum than some.

Sure, I've done that.

I copy Austin Powers all the time, and people love it when I do it. I do it, because I don't know what to talk about, most of the time.

I don't really copy characters, but I do use them as models to understand my self and my relationships with people better.

As a brief example, I like to think of myself as Ayanami Rei from Evangelion, and my best friend is like the boy (Shinji) Rei feels closest to.

Yes, I suppose so, but not just fictional characters. For most of my life, I had the exact same hairstyle, sometimes a little longer, sometimes a little shorter, but always combed or styled the exact same way, a cross between Christopher Reeves as Superman and Elvis Presley's hair (because my mom liked him, I copied some attributes from him, including trying to sing like him for several years) as I could not decide which I like better and would thus be more appealing. I used to walk like Spiderman, or so I was often told, but I don't know if I did that from him, on my own, or from him subconsciously. I could draw many cartoon characters and even imitate their voices. I tried to copy charisma and humor styles from Abbott and Costello, Marx Brothers, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Tim Conway, Laural and Hardy (even did an act based on them once), Buck Rogers, Benny Hill, to name a few. Other inspiration sources were old chinese movies on the late, late show/movie time, Choose your own adventure books, comics, movies, various books, greek, norse, and roman mythology. I had many diverse sources. I know one specific one was the film The Hidden, I suddenly realized hard rock/metal music and fast cars were fun and likeable things or I just copied those characteristics from the characters in the movie, not really sure which now.

I think I may have in part consciously set out to copy personality traits, as I think I remember once being accuse of not having one, so I decided to go out and find one by mixing what I saw and read about.

And it does take me months to several years to get used to new people and places.

So do I and I think normal people do too, from books and drama for the more cultured - after all, why do people read good novels or go see plays? - to TV for just about everybody.

The difference is I think we do it more literally and stereotypically, more likely to actually copy a character down to the details.

As I read on one AS site, in college one man tried being Groucho Marx one month and Sherlock Holmes the next!

Freshman year at uni 20 years ago I was a real one-off character, the straitlaced 1940s priest Robert DeNiro played in True Confessions.

Been told I still have that air even though I don't work at it! So maybe it wasn't a bad choice - it was intuitive of me because I'm like that anyway.

I copy fictional people for several reasons. But friendship isn't one of them. I do it for research and to help me expand my interests.

Maybe I should try it.

ive often wished i was james leer from the book and film wonder boys. ive attempted to track down the films he liked but i'm not sure if that counts as copying?

I remember even dressing up as Superman when I watched the movie. I was about 9 or 10 at the time. I remember other times I would imagine I was a minotaur and through a deep mental exercise take on their characteristics, able to run fast and but enemies with my head. I did this for many things other than just the minotaur, that is just one specific inident I remember.

Yes; including fictional characters I created myself. They tend to get real, too. Right now I'm in the process of sorting all that stuff out: all the people I've tried to be and who got sentient and stuck around. Don't know if I ever did it to "get along"; maybe more for survival, or because it just happened that way.

I try not to copy fictional characters, although I do find them inspiring. I understand what you are talking about though, and I'm sure this is something I've done whether I was concious of it or not.

In the past few months, I've seemed to take on a completely different personality when near a specific few people. It seems to be made up of several elements of normal personality, such as my occasionall hyperactivity, tendency to go and on when talking, and love for cats of all kinds, only greatly exaggerated. It's made me much more noticable in a crowd, which was perhaps my intention subconciously.

Mine would have to be Ernie for many years. I still laugh like him and kids like my laugh. But I'm thinking I wouldn't mind being Oscar the Grouch for a while!

ElfMan

Yes, yes, yes and yes. I have always copied book characters, quoted lines from books and such things to get along socially...I still do!! It usually works for me pretty well, except when I forget that the social customs in Jane Austen's(my favorite author) books are not always applicable to the moder world-LOL!!
Louisa

And if only the rules were so clear now as they were then...

Have you seen this? It's a speculation that Mary Bennet might be "slightly autistic". (scroll down to find it)

I don't see a link/addy, Echo!! I'd love to see this:-)